Study Questions for Descartes’s Discourse, Part IV

and
Meditations, I

QUESTIONS FOR DISCOURSE, IV

What three specific arguments for skepticism does D
list? Does D really doubt everything? Again, is it even possible
to achieve a state of universal doubt?

Why does he reject every proposition that depends on
sense perception? On chains of reasoning (as in mathematics)?
Why does he pretend that none of his thoughts or perceptions are no less illusory than his dreams?

What is the first certainty Descartes found after his
process of “methodological doubt?”

How does D get to the famous cogito ergo sum,
"I think therefore I am"? What follows from this first
principle (according to D, anyway)?

Why does D identify himself with his mind rather than
his body -- and why separate mind and body in the first place? How
does he arrive at the view that mind and body are totally distinct things,
that almost any property of one is absent from the other?

Descartes next turns to the question of what makes a
proposition true and certain. What makes him think that the Cogito
proposition ["I am thinking, therefore I exist"] is true and certain? What does he decide
to take as the criterion of truth? When he adopts this criterion as a
general rule, what problem does he mention that it has?

What is the larger meaning or significance of reason
and self-evidence? What sort of breakthrough does D think he has
achieved?

Why is D so sure that God exists?

What makes Descartes think that he is not a perfect
being? Why does he take the source (ultimate cause) of his ability
to conceive of something more perfect than himself to be itself more
perfect than he is? Does he think that such external things as the
earth, the stars, heat, and light exist independently of him? Why
not? Can he himself be the source or cause of his idea of a being
more perfect than himself? Why not? Why does he think that the
source or cause of this idea must be another being more perfect than himself?

Explain Descartes's
strategy for coming to know the nature of God. What attributes does
he attribute to God? What attributes does he think God cannot
exhibit?

How does Descartes conceive of the object studied by
geometers? Why are geometrical demonstrations (geometrical proofs)
widely believed to possess great certainty? Do these demonstrations
assure us of the existence of their objects? E.g., do triangles
exist in the real world (i.e., in rerumnatura)?

Does the idea of a triangle contain or include the
equality of its interior angles to two right angles? Does it contain
existence? Does the idea of God contain existence? What does
Descartes think follows from these observations? How certain, then,
is the existence of God?

What kind of certainty do we have about such apparent
facts as that we have bodies, that the earth and
sun exist? Are any facts as certain as the existence of God and of
our soul? How does Descartes appeal to dreaming to cast doubt on the
existence of an external world?

What is the difference between moral assurance and
metaphysical certainty?

QUESTIONS FOR MEDITATIONS, I

Why did it take so long for Descartes to
start to establish anything firm and lasting in the sciences.

At the
beginning of Meditation I, Descartes says that “he will apply [himself]
earnestly and unreservedly to this general demolition of [his] opinions.
(Descartes, 59) Why on earth would anybody want to do that? (See
both the Synopsis, pp. 54-56, and Meditation I for the answer.)

In the
normal course of life, is it desirable to believe only what is certain, or
is it acceptable to believe claims that are less than certain? Why? Is
Descartes advocating that we only believe what is certain?

What
strategy does Descartes say he is going to use, in performing this task?
To demolish all these opinions, does he think he needs to show they are
all false, or something weaker than that? Does he think he needs to take
up each belief individually, or is there a way to process hoards of them
at a time?

Why
does he start his doubting process with opinion gained from or through
these senses? How can he doubt them?

The
second doubt that Descartes brings forward begins with the fact that he
sometimes dreams. What beliefs does he think are called into doubt by this
argument? Which of his beliefs does he suggest are left untouched by the
Dream Argument, and why does he conjecture that the Dream argument leaves
them unscathed? What name does he give to the things these beliefs are
about? Which disciplines investigate these things?

Why
does Descartes need the Dream Argument to show that he cannot trust the
deliverances of his senses if he already has established that his senses
sometimes deceive him?

The
third doubt that Descartes brings forward begins with his belief in God.
What additional beliefs does Descartes mean to call into doubt by this
argument, and how? What objection does he consider, and how does he reply
to it?

The
fourth doubt that Descartes brings forward starts with the possibility
that God does not exist. What further beliefs does Descartes mean to call
into doubt by this argument, and how? If God does not exist what would be
the source of our own existence?

For
what reason does Descartes pretend that all his opinions are false? What
does this reveal about the difference between claims that are certain and
claims that are reasonable to believe?

Why
does Descartes compare himself to a prisoner at the end of the First
Meditation?